by Jody Kihara
strokes, I stopped to trail my arms in the water, then
cupped water and splashed it over my legs, wincing a bit as
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The Girl Across the Water
it hit the cuts. I was going to be a prime target for
mosquitoes that night.
As soon as I reached the cabin and dragged the
canoe onto the shore, I ditched the lifejacket, stripped off
my T-shirt and runners, and plunged straight into the
water. It felt icy cold. Perfect.
“Hey Paul!” Jasper called out. “What’re you doing?”
I lay on my back so that the water closed over my
ears and drowned out any sounds, and closed my eyes
against the sun.
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The Girl Across the Water
Chapter 7
We sat at the picnic table eating dinner that evening,
the setting sun casting everything in a warm, golden glow.
Then, as evening progressed and the sun sank lower, our
surroundings began to take on a slightly hazy look. It was
from this fuzzy, growing darkness that the three neighbor
kids stepped out of the woods.
Me, Dad, and Jasper stared in surprise. For a
second, the way they trailed from between the darkening
trees, they looked like ghosts.
They walked over and stood near the picnic table,
surveying us. The girl’s expression was hostile, and the two
boys were giggling, squirming, and poking each other. It
seemed like neither of them could stay still for a second.
The boys were dressed in jeans and flannel shirts. The girl
wore an open flannel shirt over her T-shirt, but her skinny
legs stuck out of frayed shorts, like she scorned the
coolness of evening.
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The Girl Across the Water
Jasper and I exchanged glances. They were so
clearly unfriendly… why were they here?
“Well, hi there!” Dad said. “You’ve just missed
dessert, but we can get the campfire going and toast some
marshmallows.”
The boys jumped and cheered at this, and then, for
no apparent reason, began a frenzied game of kicking dirt
at each other. Their sister seemed satisfied with the
mention of marshmallows, but still she stood with her
hands on her hips, one freckled leg sticking out to the side.
“This is Jasper,” I said after a pause. “And I’m Paul.”
The girl snorted and sat down at the end of the
table. “I know that.”
“What are your names?” Dad asked all three. He got
up from the table and briefly joined in the boys’ dirt-kicking
game, swerving around them like in soccer, before
gathering up our dessert plates. The boys giggled.
“I’m Rusty!” one of them piped up.
Rusty! That couldn’t be for real… had ‘Pa’ named
them out of the Redneck Book of Baby Names?
“No, it’s not!” the other said, giving a goofy laugh
and displaying the gap of a missing front tooth. “Stupid!
Don’t you remember?” This time he didn’t open his mouth
wide to laugh, but giggled through his gap. A bit of snot
flew from his nose at the same time. Great — one of those
always-snotty kids. At least there was some way of telling
them apart.
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The Girl Across the Water
“Oh, yeah!” the other said, giggling in the same way.
“Right! I mean, no wait …” He was so busy dodging around
his brother and continuing to kick dirt that he apparently
couldn’t remember his own name.
“His name’s Jason,” the snotty one said before
attacking his brother with a fierce flurry of dirt. “He wants a
dog called Rusty, but Pa won’t get us one, so we have to
call him that.”
They both dissolved into laughter. Then Jason began
barking, high and loud. I exchanged looks with Jasper,
whose eyes were wide. “I think I’ll help clear up,” Jasper
said, and scurried off to the cabin. I glared after him.
Thanks, Jasper.
“His name’s Brendan,” Jason said, and the two burst
into another fit of snot-punctuated laughter. Brendan
kicked dirt back in protest, and gave Jason several punches
on the arm. “It’s not, it’s not! Brendan’s a stupid name!”
“I know, that’s why we call him Bren. No wait…
Brenda!”
They laughed so hard that they had to stop kicking
dirt for a minute. A still-attached piece of snot flew in and
out from Brendan’s nose, like one of those paddle balls on
elastic.
I edged away from another flurry of dirt and snot.
“What’s your name?” I asked the girl, wishing Dad and
Jasper would hurry up and get back.
“Coralie,” she said, glaring at me like I might argue
the point.
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The Girl Across the Water
Coralie… Corey. My heart gave a quick beat. There
couldn’t be any connection, could there? So she had a
similar name to the young girl who’d gone missing ten
years ago… that was a pretty weak link. Still, it reminded
me of The Girl, and I found myself wondering again where
she’d disappeared to. I didn’t imagine it all, I told myself.
“Well?” Coralie asked.
“Huh?”
“I asked you—” She rolled her eyes like I was totally
stupid. “—how long you’re here.”
“Oh, right. A month. How ‘bout you?”
She shrugged, then jumped up and, for no apparent
reason, ran over and punched one of her brothers in the
back. He merely laughed, the gap in his teeth showing
again.
Dad walked out of the cabin carrying a bag of
marshmallows. The twins immediately ran over, tore the
bag from him, and started stuffing marshmallows in their
mouths. I wondered if there’d be any left to roast.
“I’ll get the campfire going,” Dad said, regarding the
crazed kids with a bemused expression.
It was getting dark now, and as Dad built the fire,
our view of the lake was blotted out by the gathering dusk.
By the time the fire was crackling, the woods were a fuzzy
curtain of dark, indistinguishable shapes.
I love the sound of a roaring fire, but I could barely
hear it over the commotion of the two boys fighting. Their
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punches, shouts of ‘ ow!’ and giggled protests continued,
only pausing when they took a break to stuff more
marshmallows in their faces. Dad handed everyone sticks,
and the twins, of course, started a swordfight with theirs. I
moved away from eye-swiping range to sit on one of the
logs by the fire.
Coralie sat down on the other log, at right angles to
mine. Jasper seated himself next to me, as far as possible
from the kids. He’d managed to quietly remove the bag of
marshmallows while the boys were sword fighting, and he
now speared three onto his stick. I did the same, before
tossing the bag to Coralie. Her brothers quickly seated
themselves next to her, or rather, next to the
marshmallo
ws.
Dad sat down next to me, and we all toasted our
marshmallows quietly while he was there. “So how long are
you here for?” he asked cheerfully. Coralie glared at him,
like he should’ve known I’d already asked that. Holding her
marshmallow out on its stick, she put her elbows on her
knees and her chin in one hand, not bothering to answer.
Dad glanced over at me. I shrugged.
Dad left after that, I guess so we could all ‘get to
know each other.’ But as Jasper wasn’t saying a word and
Coralie only glared, and the twins were incapable of rational
conversation, I found myself wishing they’d hurry up and
leave. The boys took their sticks away from the fire and
tried to eat their marshmallows too soon, of course burning
their mouths. Laughing, Jason pushed Brendan off the log,
at which point Brendan suddenly burst into tears. “You got
more marshmallows that me!” he protested through snotty
sniffles.
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Jasper shuffled around. I gave him a don’t-you-dare-
leave look.
“I know!” Coralie said, sitting up with sudden
interest. “Why don’t we tell ghost stories?”
I sat up in surprise. It was the first relatively friendly
thing she’d said.
“Well, okay.”
“You first!” she declared.
I was about to point out that it was her idea, then
figured I’d never win an argument with Coralie. “Okay, let
me think.” I wracked my brains and finally remembered
one from my days of backyard sleepovers.
“Okay, so. This guy is having a drink in an out-of-
the-way pub he’s never been to before. He’s about to
leave, and this other guy asks him where he’s going. He
tells him the route, which happens to be along a dark,
country lane. The second guy says ‘Well, whatever you do,
don’t pick up any hitchhikers.’ He says he won’t, and heads
off. So then he’s driving along this winding, narrow road, all
he can see is the beam of his headlights, and suddenly this
girl appears, almost right in front of him. He slams on the
brakes and the girl goes to the passenger window. He rolls
it down. She’s about nineteen, and has long blonde hair
and a really pale face, and she looks scared and forlorn.”
“What does that mean?” Jason whispered.
“It means sad, stupid,” Coralie muttered. Then
louder, to me: “Anyway, I’ve heard this one.”
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The Girl Across the Water
I whipped my empty marshmallow stick down in
exasperation. “So do you want me to tell it or not?”
Coralie shrugged. Her brothers, however, were
squirming and giggling, and saliva was bouncing in and out
of Jason’s tooth-gap. “Tell it, tell it!” he said, bouncing
more. “What did the guy do?”
With a silencing glare at Coralie, I continued. “The
girl said she was out by herself and needed a ride home. So
because she’s young and scared looking, the guy says of
course. But instead of getting in the front of the car, she
gets in the back. So then he’s driving along and asks where
she lives. And she says, just up ahead.
“The road turns a sharp corner and he hears her say,
‘Thanks for stopping for me. No one else ever does, they’re
too scared.’ But when he looks in his rear-view mirror,
there’s no one in the car.
“So he yells and hits the brakes, and gets out the
car, figuring she must have jumped out when it was still
moving or something. But when he looks around, he can’t
see anything in the dark. He grabs a flashlight from the
trunk and shines it around. And just to the side of the road,
the light picks out an old, rusty metal sign on a set of gates
that are falling apart. And the sign says…” I lowered my
voice. “CEMETERY.”
The twins squealed at this, and started bouncing up
and down like a couple of Mexican jumping beans.
“That’s so cool, that’s so scary!” Brendan squealed.
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The Girl Across the Water
Through his giggles, Jason asked, “I don’t get it,
where’d the girl go?”
Coralie reached out and slammed her fist into his
arm. “She was a ghost, stupid. It means she was buried in
the cemetery.”
“O-o-oh,” he said. “Now I get it!”
I rolled my eyes. Good lord. Tough crowd.
“I’ve got one, I’ve got one!” Brendan piped up,
bouncing up and down on the log.
I looked at him in surprise. This kid had the brain
capacity to remember an entire story?
“Okay, this guy’s driving along this really dark road,
and he’s never been there before―”
“You’re copying his!” Jason protested.
“No I’m not, this is different! Okay, well it’s this lady
driving along, and she sees this guy by the side of the
road--”
“Copycat!”
“No, I’m not! Cause he’s all bloody! He’s bleeding
and he asks if she’ll stop and help, so she does…”
Coralie and Jason started pummeling him. “You don’t
have a story!” they both yelled.
“I have one,” Jasper said quietly.
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The Girl Across the Water
The neighbor kids stopped, mid-pummel, and turned
towards him. I turned in surprise, too; Jasper hated being
the centre of attention.
“It’s called ‘the children on the stairs’. Have you
heard it?”
“No,” Coralie said, and they all leaned forward, their
faces orange in the glow of the fire. “Sounds creepy.”
“It is. Okay, so there’s this lady, see, and she has
seven young kids. But she’s really, really evil. One night…”
Jasper leaned forward, “…she gets a hatchet and leads
them all away from the house and into the woods. And
then… she murders them all.”
The twins gasped.
“Then she chops up the bodies and buries them, and
goes back home to her big, empty house. She lives on her
own in this creepy, old mansion, way out in the woods, so
at first no one knows about the kids going missing. But
then when they don’t show up at school, people start
asking about them. Then the cops come to the lady’s
house. She says the kids all went out to play one evening
and never came back. The cops don’t believe her, but even
though they search and search, they can’t find anything, so
they can’t accuse her of murder.
“Weeks later, the police finally give up on the case.
And the day they mark the case closed, the lady goes to
bed that night, and she’s lying in bed with the lights out,
when she hears a noise from the bottom of the stairs. So
she flicks on her nightlight. And she hears a faint chorus of
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seven little voices. And they’re saying: ‘ We’re at the bottom
of the stairs! ’”
Coralie and the twins leaned further forward, their
eyes wide.
Jasper continued, “She jumps out of bed, ‘cause it
sounds exactly like her kids’ voices. She goes to the landing
and looks down the stairs, but there’s nothing there, so she
figures she must have been hearing things. Only, when she
goes back to bed, she hears these little singsong voices
again, and this time they’re saying, ‘We’re coming up the
stairs!’
“So the lady rushes to the door and looks around
again, but sees nothing. This time, when she runs back in
the bedroom, she locks the door before getting back in bed.
Then, just as she pulls up her quilt, she hears voices again.
‘We’re on the landing, we’re on the landing!’
“She knows must be hearing things. So she closes
her eyes and pulls the covers up. Then the voices sing:
‘We’re outside the door!’
“The lady’s totally freaking out now. And then, all of
a sudden, her nightlight goes out. The room is totally dark.
And in the darkness, she hears the click of her door lock
opening. And then the chorus of voices says: ‘We’re at the
foot of the bed!’
“She tries to click the light switch on, on, on… but
nothing happens. Finally the light switches on, and she
looks down at the end of the bed, totally freaked out,
feeling like she’s going to have a heart attack. But there’s
no one in the bedroom!”
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The fire gave a fierce crackle, making me and the
neighbor kids jump about a foot off our logs. Both Brendan
and Jason squealed. Jasper lowered his voice to continue.
“She’s convinced by now that she’s going crazy and
hearing things. So when she hears the voices chant, ‘ We’re
under the bed,’ she leans over the edge of her bed, slowly,
with the light still on, and even more slowly, pulls the cover
up to look… and she screams.”
Brendan gave a tiny squeal, but Coralie quickly
silenced him with a punch.
“The police officers coming to investigate the scene
the next day can’t understand what they find. The bed is
completely blood-soaked. But there’s no sign of the
woman… instead, there are the bodies of…” He whispered,
“the seven dead children.”
